Group inflates cost of noncitizen voter purge in 2012

@amysherman1

At the start of a statewide election year,Democrats and the NAACP launched new attacks on the state’s plan for a new round of searching for noncitizens who registered to vote.

House Democratic leader Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach and the NAACP held a press conference Jan. 13 to criticize Florida’s Republican administration for preparing to send a new batch of names of potential noncitizens to county election supervisors. Secretary of State Ken Detzner, an appointee of Gov. Rick Scott, is leading the project.

In a press release, the left-leaning group Florida for All criticized the state’s spending on the effort in 2012:

"Rick Scott’s Administration spent over $100,000 of taxpayer money during their first voter purge attempt in 2012, producing lists with hundreds and hundreds of citizens that local Supervisors of Elections proved were legally registered voters. Over 80 percent of those on the purge lists were people of color and more than 6 in 10 were Hispanic. It was a costly embarrassment that Floridians fear will be repeated."

Florida for All is a political action committee that is at least in part funded by the Democratic Governors Association. The group’s main target appears to be Scott, who faces a re-election this year and could face his predecessor, former Gov. Charlie Crist who is now a Democrat.

At PolitiFact Florida we have fact-checked multipleclaims about the state’s 2012 effort to search for noncitizens who registered to vote. But we had never researched the total dollar figure attached to that effort: Did Florida spend "over $100,000" for that initiative? Turn to PolitiFact for the answer.

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Florida for All, this is but one resource for local supervisor of elections to use in completing their required duty to purge voter lists of ineligible voters. Heck, even OJ Simpson was on the rolls and didn't get purged until a news story ran about it... obviously there is needed help on the local level.

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